"People come to our film expecting some kind of true crime story but that's not what we were attempting to do," said 30-year-old filmmaker Joe Berlinger of the award-winning documentary "Brother's Keeper."

William Shakespeare, whose 450th birthday is being celebrated around the world Wednesday, never seems to go out of vogue for movie directors eager to put their own spin on his classic texts. Most of Shakespeare's plays have been adapted for the big screen multiple times over, ranging from faithful (Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet") to wildly unconventional (Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet"). Because Shakespeare's plays exist in the public domain, adapting them for the movies is an economical way of co-opting some literary prestige.

Signe Hasso, a Swedish-born stage and film actress who played strong leading ladies in American movies in the 1940s, most notably in George Cukor's "A Double Life," has died. She was 91. Hasso died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The cause of death was not announced. Her father and grandfather died when she was 4, and her mother supported the family by making waffles. Hasso lived with her mother, grandmother, sister and brother in a one-room apartment in Stockholm.

It's not only biblical prophets who have visions, movie directors have them too. And when a filmmaker like Darren Aronofsky bring his very personal perspective to the ancient story of Noah and the flood, moviegoers will have to hang on tight to avoid getting washed overboard. Grandiose, improbable, outlandish and overwrought, "Noah" is the kind of simultaneously preposterous and dead serious movie that has become Aronofsky's specialty. As much a fantasia inspired by the Old Testament as a literal retelling of that tale, "Noah" manages to blend the expected with the unexpected and does it with so much gusto and cinematic energy you won't want to divert your eyes from the screen.

The week that East and West Germany became one again, Michael Verhoeven was in the United States drumming up publicity for his film about a far less jubilant era in German history--an era that, as his darkly comic film illustrates, the majority of Germans would simply prefer to forget.

It wasn't enough that Mike Nichols had pledged $1.5 million of his own money in a bidding war for the film rights to the best-selling "Primary Colors," a roman a clef based on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. The Oscar-winning director also had to "audition"--that is, present his vision of the film to "Anonymous," the phantom author of the book.

It was a deal of exquisite simplicity: When British film director Sally Potter fell in love with the tango, she cornered one of its leading exponents, Argentine Pablo Veron, and told him: "Teach me to tango--and I'll make you a film star." Did Veron imagine he would be romancing a succession of young, statuesque Hollywood starlets on screen? It is unclear. But in any case he acquiesced--and thus, a film, Potter's "The Tango Lesson," was born.

Late one evening, Michael Mann realized that the airplanes were getting on his nerves. The director and his camera crew were camped on the edge of a runway at LAX, struggling to film a climactic scene in the cop drama "Heat" as jets roared 75 feet overhead every minute and a half. "There were periods when it got kind of surreal," he recalled. "You're breathing hard, your heart's going, you feel like you're working hard.

What everyone really wants, as the Hollywood cliche goes, is to direct. The ambition to get behind a camera and tell a story exactly as they envision it is powerfully alluring for actors, writers and others to whom producers turn to handle the task--and especially these days, it seems, directors of slick TV commercials and music videos. With rare exceptions, directors of animated features have not been a talent pool into which producers have dipped for their live-action pictures.

Walt Disney Studios, a name synonymous with family entertainment, has become embroiled in an unlikely controversy with disclosures that the writer/director of its latest film, "Powder," is a convicted child molester. Victor Salva, a former child-care worker who impressed Hollywood filmmakers with his early cinematic work, was sentenced to three years in state prison in 1988 for molesting a 12-year-old boy who had acted in two of his films. Salva videotaped one of the encounters.

Filmgoers who've seen “The Lego Movie” since it came out last weekend have no doubt been tickled by the movie's pop-culture shout-outs. Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shaquille O'Neal and Gandalf are among those getting loving (and not-so-loving) homages in the new animated movie. In fact, there are so many outside references in the Warner Bros. film that one can't imagine that directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller wanted any other charcaters. But they did, and it's a doozy.

Ted Post, a veteran television and film director who directed a young Clint Eastwood on TV's "Rawhide" and later directed the film legend in the hit movies "Hang 'em High" and "Magnum Force," has died. He was 95. Post, who had been in failing health, died early Tuesday at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, said his daughter, Laurie Post. Beginning with an episode of the TV dramatic anthology series "Danger" in 1950, Post went on to direct segments of series such as "Armstrong Circle Theatre," "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars," "Medic," "Waterfront," "Perry Mason," "The Rifleman" and "Gunsmoke.

Tick, tick, tick. You can almost hear that lethal sound in director Ben Affleck's explosive drama "Argo. " You can certainly feel the clock running out in this rare based-on-a-true-life story that manages to keep hold of its stomach-churning suspense until the end. Affleck as a CIA operative-pseudo filmmaker, Alan Arkin as a fake movie studio head and John Goodman as the make-up artist are the central brain trust trying to pull off an insane scam to...

A word to the wise, Frank Oz fans: He won't do that Yoda impression. The 68-year-old Hollywood Renaissance man - Muppet puppeteer, movie director and the voice behind the pint-sized Jedi master - holds his characters too sacred for such tripe. "You wouldn't parade your kids around like that, would you?" he said. "They're part of me. I won't use them as a party favor to impress people. " Oz, who currently resides in Manhattan, will return to Los Angeles on Thursday to accept a lifetime achievement honor at the 38th Saturn Awards (which, for the sci-fi un-savvy, is a sort of Oscars for the horror and fantasy genre, presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films)

Potent, persuasive and hypnotic, "The Dark Knight Rises"has us at its mercy. A disturbing experience we live through as much as a film we watch, this dazzling conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard. So much so that, its considerable 2-hour, 44-minute length notwithstanding, as soon as it's over, all you want to do is see it all over again. That desire comes despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that "The Dark Knight Rises" might be the bleakest, most despairing superhero film ever made.

One year ago, after putting in a full day of work at her local department store, Betsy DelValley got home and pulled out her video camera. It was July 24, 2010, the day that YouTube launched an experimental project asking users of the social media site worldwide to submit videos about what transpired in their lives over 24 hours. The best submissions would later be culled together for a documentary film. DelValley, then 19, was intrigued by the undertaking. The problem was, nothing all that exciting had transpired on the day she was meant to film.

Warren Beatty grimaced when he tuned in the television debut of "Bonnie and Clyde" on a September night 11 years ago. The blood and violence didn't repulse him, as it did some viewers. In fact, the star and producer of the 1967 Oscar-nominated movie felt shortchanged. Half the bullets from the film were missing from the screen, scattered instead on a cutting-room floor.

Before assuming that "Lorenzo's Oil," based on the true story of a couple seeking a cure for their terminally ill son, bears no relationship to George Miller's post-Apocalyptic "Mad Max" trilogy, think again. Though the movies' content and style couldn't differ more, both feature "heroic loners" whose struggle is more important than the outcome itself.

Two legends of French cinema, — Oscar-winning director Bertrand Blier ("Get Out Your Handkerchiefs") and César-winning actress Nathalie Baye ("Day for Night," "La Balance"), will be appearing with their latest films at the 15th annual City of Lights, City of Angels festival, which opens Monday and continues through April 18 at the Directors Guild of America Theater. It is the first time either has appeared at the festival, which features an eclectic array of the latest in contemporary French cinema — and includes two world premieres among the 34 features.

In the late 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division was caught up in the worst corruption scandal in the department's history. It didn't take long for Hollywood to mine the subject matter. The scandal, in which dozens of officers in Rampart's anti-gang unit were accused of serious misconduct, including perjury and evidence tampering, heavily influenced the FX TV series "The Shield" and the 2001 movie "Training Day," starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.